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A TOUR OF THE WINDOWS OF ST. EDMUND'S CHURCH: THE MARY BOWLING WINDOWS

 

THE WINDOWS OF ST. EDMUND'S, San Marino, California, like the building itself, are a happy combination of traditional and contemporary conceptualizations.  In representing the history of trhe Christian Church in ten windows, the now deceased artist, Mary Bowling of Los Angeles, used primitive and traditional ideas in combination with her own free composition.  The studio of Karl Hackert Inc. of Chicago collaborated with Mary Bowling, using iron oxice for the brown stains and black lines, and of silver oxide for golden tones.  Iron oxide has been in use in satined glass production since the twelfth century, and silver since the fourteenth.  Both of these materials are fused by heat to become permanent parts of the glass.  The exclusion of red from the windows in St. Edmund's was a deliberate choice, with only the Rose Window (not conceived by Mary Bowling) incorporating red.  A large amount of flashed glass has been used and etched to obtain the desired shading from blue to whit.  Wherever gold appears on a white background, or on a partly etched blue background, this color was obtained by applying a silver stain which when fired oxidezes into a golden stain. 

WINDOW ONE:  THE RESURRECTION

 

The story of the Church begins with the first Easter Day.  The artist has taken the poetic license of including St. Mary, the mother of our Lord, among the three women who came through the early dawn to the tomb, to find the stone rolled away and light streaming from the door.  The Roman soldiers sleep beneath the entrance.  Above the tomb kneels the Angel of the Resurrecton bearing the traditional "Easter lily.  Palms symbolize our Lord's victory over death, the encircled square and crown symbolize His eternal glory.  The vine at the left recalls, "I am the vine, and you are the branches," (St. John 15).  Above at the right is the chi rho monogram, the "labarum" of Constantine.  This window is typical of Bowling's individual style.  There is a deceptive simplicity in the apparent artlessness of the figures.  Eloquent and deeply moving effects are achieved with economy of line.  Malraux has expresses this..."the forms of religious art have this in common, that they differ from the real."  The style of sacred art is a technique for creating figures that partially escape from the thrall of the human.

 

WINDOW TWO:  THE PENTECOST (WHITSUNDAY)

 

At Pentecost (also called Whitsunday), fifty days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended on the infant Church bestowing the power which Christ had promised with His comman to preach the Gospel to all nations.  The descending dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, recalling our Lord's baptism.  The six figures represent the people of the six continents of the world: from left to right, North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.  In his Whitsunday sermon St. Peter quoted the words of the Prophet Joel: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, says the LORD God, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."  In the Apocalypse we read, "The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature was like a calf, and the third creature had a face as of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle."  From early times these have been taken for symbols of the four Gospels: the lion for St. Mark, the calf for St. Luke, the creature with the face of a man for St. Matthew, and the eagle for St. John.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Evangelists interpreted the Gospel message for all times and all lands. 

 

WINDOW THREE: SAINTS PETER AND PAUL & THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH

 

 

Saints Peter and Paul are the great heroes of the Apostolic Church.  Their names have always been coupled in the commemoration of June 29th.  In the left panel St. Paul preaches in a Grecian courtyard, his auditors leaning out to fhte windows to hear his gracious words.  The lower figures are those of King Agrippa (Acts 16:2), a Roman soldier and a prisoner.  St. Paul's letters, which make up a fourth of the New Testament, are represented by the rolled parchments at his feet.  In the right panel St. Peter bears the key which our Lord committed to him (St. Matthew 16:19) and the cross of his martyrdom.  At his feet is the cock, at whose crowing he recalled the words of Jesus, "Ere the cock crow twice, you will have denied me three times," and wept bitterly.  The heads of Peter and Paul are from bronze medals of he third century, shown in Lowrie's "Monuments of the Early Church."  Dr. Lowrie says of them, "There is great bigor, albeit a certain physical coarseness, in the round head of Peter, a high, straight forehead, a bit more prominent by his baldness."  Above St. Peter's head are the seven churches of Asia Minor (Revelation 1-3) from a medieval representation.

 

WINDOW FOUR: SAINT STEPHEN & CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM

 

 

For the better part of the first three hundred years of the Church's history, to be a Christian was to live in constant peril of one's life.  "And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'  Ane he knelt down...and when he had said this he fell asleep."  (Acts 7:59-60).  The lower left panel is the artist's representation of St. Stephen, the protomartyr of Christendom.  The catacombs of Rome became the burial place of many Christian martyrs, and upon memorial days and in times of persecution they were used as places of worship.  In the lower right panel a Christian priest celebrates the Holy Eucharist at a catacomb Altar.  Illuminated by the hanging lamp are beloved catacomb represtations: the Good Shepherd, Noah's Ark, Jonah's great fish, and Jesus raising Peter from the waves--the latter three being types of Holy Baptism.  Above is a catacomb tomb marked with the X P (chi rho) symbol for Christos, and the favorite acrostic on the Greek word for fish, icthus: Iesous Christos theous uios soter, "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour."  The anchor of hope, together with the familiar fish symbol and the river of salvation make up the upper left panel.  "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," as Tertullian said.  Despite persecutions the Church grew so strong that the persecution of 305 A.D. was the last general persecution.

 

WINDOW FIVE:  THE NICENE CREED

 

 

The Emperor Constantine hoped to unite the fading Roman Empire by making Christianity the official religion.  Finding serious divisions in the Church, he called a council of the bishops at the city of Nicea (near contemporary Istanbul, Turkey) in the year 325A.D.  In the upper panel is an ancient representation of the bishops presenting their conclusions to the Emperor.  The principal part of the Nicene Creed comes from this council.  Freed from persecution, the Church produced great teachers during the fourth and fifth centuries, and set forth her major doctrines and creedal statements.  We have represented in this window two Doctors of the Greek or Eastern part of Christendom, and two of the West or Latin part.  At the left is St. Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin from the original Greek and Hebrew tongues.  He belongs to the fifth century, but he is shown in traditional medieval style as a Cardinal of the Roman Church.  Next is St. Athanasius, the hero of Nicea.  At the time of that council he was a deacon of the Church in Alexandria, of which Church he was later Bishop, though many times exiled for his fidelity to the Nicene Faith.  Next is St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Noarth Africa, author of the "Confessions" and "The City of God."  The fourth Doctor is St. Chrysostom, the "golden mouth" patriarch of Constantinople, know to Episcopalians by the concluding collect at Morning and Evening Prayer, which bears his name.  His exile, resulting from his preaching against the frivolities of the court, is symbolized by the cactus at his feet.

 

WINDOW SIX:  BRITISH CHRISTIANITY

 

 

An ancient legend makes St. Joseph of Arimathea the first apostle of Britain.  His story is recalled in the budded staff at the extreme right of the window.  At Glastonbury, where he planted his staff, the "Glastonbury thorn," he is said to have enshrined the Holy Grail (upper right) in a little church of clay and wattles--indicated by the woven willows.  By whomever founded, this ancient British Church ws the Mother Church of the Irish, whose Celtic Church is symbolized by the ribbon cross.  In the Venerable Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation" we learn of Britain's protomartyr St. Alban, represented in the lower left panel.  In the persecution of the year 305 a Christian priest sought refuge in the house of Alban, a Roman soldier.  Persuaded by the priest's words and manner of life, when the soldiers came to arrest him Alban put on the priest's vestment and took the priest's place.  His executioner was so moved by Alban's example that he confessed himself a Christian and knelt by his side.  Both were baptized in their own blood.  In 597A.D. St. Augustine (bearing the name of his famed predecessor of Window V) was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to Canterbury to preach the Gospel to the heathen Saxons.  His work, combined with that of the old British Church, produced "Ecclesia Anglicana" the Church of the English people.  He is the monkish figure in the lower right panel.  With him is King Alfred, the ninth century vanquisher of the Danes, and patron of English learning.  Below their feet is represented the Venerable Bede's story of Caedmon, the first Saxon poet, and above their heads is the bird in rapid flight of which we read in the conversion of Edwin of Northumbria.  In the upper left panel is the seal of St. Edmund, a contemporary of King Alfred, and patron of our parish.

 

WINDOW SEVEN: THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

 

In the Middle Ages Europe, including Britain, worked toward and partially achieved a Christian unity which a divided modern world might well admire.  The monuments of this age which remain to our day are the Gothic churches.  We have represented in this window a contemporary print of King Henry III of England giving orders to his architect for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in Gothic style.  The English were always concerned to incorporate the newest ideas into their building schemes.  In the thirteenth century a great revival of Church life was brought about by the orders of friars.  St. Francis and St. Dominic, the founders of the two great orders, actually met on one occasion, and the artist has so represented them in the left panel.  Francis is roughly clad in peasant garb, a bird perched on his hand.  Dominic is more formally attired and carries a book, symbolic of the learning of his order, and a lily to recall his devotion to Our Lady.  Above their heads the artist has allowed St. Francis to break into glorious poetry in his Canticle of the Sun, calling upon all creation to praise and bless God.

 

WINDOW EIGHT: THE REFORMATION

 

In the sixteenth century our Mother Church of England was separated from the unity of Medieval Europe.  The Tudor crest in the upper left panel stands for Henry VIII who made the original break with Rome, for his son Edward VI during whose reign the reformation of the Church was carried forward, for Mary I, Henry's daughter who restored the papal power, and for Elizabeth I, another daughter during whose long reign the independence of the Church of England from Rome was firmly established.  Below Archbishop Cranmer with other bishops is presenting to the boy king Edward VI the Prayer Book of 1549.  The lighted candle recalls the death at the stake of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and many others during Mary's reign.  As the faggots were lighted Bishop Latimer called out, "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, we shall this day light such a candle in England as by God's grace will not be put out!"  The cross of Canterbury proclaims the subsequent independence of that See, the center of Anglican unity.  The seventeenth century was the era of the Stuarts whose crest appears in the upper right panel.  Below, King James I in 1611 receives the "Authorized" version of the Bible from Bishop Lancelot Andrewes and other scholars.  Other Stuart monarchs were Charles I who with Archbishop Laud was heheaded by the Puritans.  Charles II, James II, William and Mary, and good Queen Anne who did so much for the Church in America.  Thewedding ring and scallop shell recall the fidelity of James I to the ancient ceremonies of marriage and baptism in the face of Puritan opposition.  The Maypole stands for the "Declaration of Sports" which enraged the Puritans so, and contributed to the downfall of Archbishop Laud and Charles I whose martyrdom is recalled by the sword and flame.

 

WINDOW NINE: THE AMERICAN CHURCH

 

 

The first recorded use of the Book of Common Prayer on the American Continent was upon the West Coast in 1579.  Sir Francis Drake in his flagship the Golden Hind drew into what is now called Drake's Bay north of the Golden Gate of San Francisco.  There his chaplain conducted a service according to Prayer Book rites.  The representation of the Golden Hind is from an old print.  The huge Prayer Book Cross in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco memorializes this first service, for which Drake and his men are standing upon the California shore, their heads reverently bared, the blue Pacific forming the background.  At Jamestown, Virginia on June 21, 1607, the godly priest Robert Hunt, chaplain of the Jamestown Expedition, celebrated the Holy Eucharist in "a pen of poles with a sail for a roof, and for a pulpit a bar between two convenient trees."  The native American and the Cavalier are from a contemporary print called "The Marriage of Pocahontas."  Above the head of Chaplain Hunt is recalled the later Independence of the American colonies symbolized by the American eagle.  Also there is recalled the independence of the American Episcopal Church symbolized by the cover of our first American Prayer Book in the year 1789.

 

WINDOW TEN:  SAINT EDMUND'S, SAN MARINO

 

 

In 1940 Bishop Stevens of the Diocese of Los Angeles, whose seal appears at the upper right, appointed Father William Cowans to begin an Episcopal Mission in San Marino.  In June 1941 the Chapel was opened for the first service.  In the right panel is the familar font of the Chapel, with light streaming from the open doors into the community, while into the Chapel are coming neighborhood children.  The oragne, olive, oak, and palm trees of the area surround the Chapel.  The seal of the city of San Marino, borrowed from the small Republic of the same name, reminds us of our responsibilities to the several communities which we serve.  In the lower left panel the priestly ministry of the Church is prepresented by the Priest administering Holy Baptism.  Above the priest's head are the thistle and the St. Andrew's Cross of Scotland, from whom the American Church received the consecration of her first Bishop, Samuel Seabury, and her first Canon of the Eucharist/Mass.  The shield is that of the National Episcopal Church.  The orb surmounted by the Cross reminds us that the story of the Church does not end with our own parish.  Just as the Church has come to us through the lives of untold saints and martyrs and through centuries of time, so we must do our part to carry our Lord's commission throughout the earth, preaching the Gospel to all nations until the Cross shall triumphantly surmount the globe.